Each year, over a half-million Americans die from heart attacks. Even more--close to 700,000--have non-fatal heart attacks. For these surviving victims, a portion of the heart is usually damaged irreparably. Such cell death of cardiac tissue, called myocardial infarction, is due in large part to tissue damage caused by ischemia and/or ischemia followed by reperfusion.
Similar ischemic damage may occur in many other tissues when the blood supply to the tissue is reduced or cut off. Stroke, deep vein thrombosis, pulmonary embolus, and renal failure are examples.
Surviving victims of ischemic episodes, such as heart attacks, are at substantially greater risk for subsequent episodes of ischemia, which in many cases prove debilitating or fatal. Thus, it would be desirable to have therapeutic methods and compositions by which survivors of heart attacks and other types of ischemic insults could lower the risk of tissue damage due to recurrent ischemic/reperfusion episodes.